ICE Talks steps into sustainable shoes for International Confex

ICE Talks, the educational arm of UK-based ICE (In-house Corporate Event) organiser community, is hosting a seminar and panel discussion as part of the educational programme at International Confex in London next month (25-26 February, ExCeL London). The session follows the launch, last year, of the organisation’s initiative, ‘It Takes a Pair of Shoes’. The session aims to compile an industry-wide list of the ‘little things’ event professionals can do, that have a massive impact on making events more sustainable. The inspiration behind it came from a talk delivered by Katherine McCartney, one of the leaders behind the TED conference phenomenon, at ICE Talks last year, who raised awareness that; “If a plane load (737) of delegates were all to take one less pair of shoes in their luggage it would be the equivalent of taking 10,500 cars of the road per year.” ICE is keen to explore how many other small actions could have potentially far reaching results, particularly within the events industry. To facilitate their research, ICE is bringing together a panel of industry leaders at Confex to share its intelligence on the best way organisers can implement genuinely impactful initiatives across their events. ICE and ICE Awards founder and Director, Anita Howard (pictured), said. “I look forward to hearing what else the industry is currently doing towards climate change and hope that through these discussions, we’ll be able to bring together a sustainability roadmap that will help organisers in their efforts towards sustainability. We’ve already seen Katherine’s ‘A pair of shoes’ advice passed around to delegates throughout the ICE community. It shows that when we act, we have amazing power.” The discussion at International Confex will cover a number of different sustainability topics including food waste, plastic use and delegate transport. ICE is continuing the conversation through social media and will share their findings in coming weeks.   To register for free to attend International Confex, click here.